(Cold) blast from past: First 49ers-Packers game foreshadowed ’14 meeting

Packers halfback Larry Coutre is upended by San Francisco 49ers cornerback Lowell Wagner during the Packers’ 25-21 victory at old City Stadium on Nov. 26, 1950. Others in the play include Packers guard Chuck Drulis (18) and fullback Tony Canadeo (3) and 49ers middle guard Visco Grgich (34) and defensive end Gail Bruce (54). It was the 49ers’ first game in Green Bay. (Press-Gazette photo from the Tom Pigeon collection)

On Nov. 26, 1950, the weather in Green Bay, Wis., was relatively balmy before it worsened.

It was near 30 degrees, but some serious teeth-chattering began thanks to a snowstorm and 28 mile-per-hour winds. Green Bay Press-Gazette sports writer Art Daley, who covered a Packers game that day that was blanketed by two inches of snow, called it “the worst winter-game weather conditions in the history of Packer competition anywhere.”

Sixty-three meetings and 64 years later, the teams will connect again in conditions which promise to be even worse than those braved during their inaugural clash at City Stadium in Green Bay (the Packers moved to Lambeau Field in 1957).

Sunday’s sub-zero forecast has conjured up memories of the Ice Bowl in 1967 (this account is well worth your time), the Freezer Bowl in 1982 and other arctic-weather games in NFL lore.

That first 49ers-Packers meeting hasn’t been in the conversation, but courtesy of Jeff Ash, the online content producer at the Press-Gazette, here’s some of the colorful history from that game:

** There had been a record cold snap over Thanksgiving, and the field had been covered with hay and heavy paper (Green Bay was, and is, a paper mill town).

** The fans threw snowballs to protest calls that went against the Packers. The Packer Lumberjack Band played and tried to stay warm with small oil and charcoal heaters, but some of the trombones froze anyway.

** Dan McGuire, the 49ers’ publicity director, marveled at the attendance of 13,196.

“You can’t beat this town,” he told the Press-Gazette. “In any ordinary town, you wouldn’t have had more than 2,000 at that game. And what was it, something more than 13,000 turned out here?”

More than six decades later, the faithful are still braving brutal elements to see the Packers play. It took until Friday, but the Packers sold out 80,750-seat Lambeau for a wild-card game that could feature a wind-chill factor of at least minus-30 degrees.

The Packers will provide their hardy fans with free coffee and hot chocolate, and will also distribute 70,000 hand warmers.